Hunger-striking journalist al-Shami to be released due to 'health conditions'

Egypt's Prosecutor-General on Monday ordered the release of Al Jazeera reporter Abdullah al-Shami and 12 other people pending trial into violence-related charges.

In a statement, the Prosecutor-General Hisham Barakat attributed the move to the "health conditions" of the defendants.

Monday saw Shami enter his 139^th day of hunger strike, a protest which has seen him lose more than a third of his body weight.

The statement, however, gave no details of the identities of the 12 other defendants who are to be released.

On 13 June the Jordan-based NGO Centre for Defending Freedom of Journalists released a statement calling Shami’s ongoing detention “a violation of press freedom” while an international awareness and social media campaign spearheaded by Al Jazeera has long called for his release. 

Last Thursday a court moved to renew his detention for a further 45 days, on charges including inciting violence, rioting, and disrupting public order.

Shami was arrested last August while covering the bloody dispersal of a Cairo sit-in staged by supporters of ousted president Mohamed Morsi, during which hundreds of demonstrators were killed.

Three other Al Jazeera journalists who were working for the network's English-language channel at the time of their arrest have been detained in Egypt since December 2013. Their trial is ongoing.